The story is just a bunch of one-liners and cliches (Destiny)

by iconicbanana, C2-H5-OH + NAD, Portland, OR, Thursday, January 15, 2015, 08:53 (3401 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Destiny's story lacks focus, and feels cobbled together. Probably because the strong voice that was guiding it, and trying to focus the committee, left the project a year before release. The committee then put together a bunch of cliches because a group of writers usually just try to hit every ball out of the park, and end up with a bunch of one-liners and cliches.

Video game writing is bad because the people who work in the video games industry tend to be… well let's just say more nerdy. I'm willing to bet a lot of them haven't really experienced much of life besides being in front of a screen, thus cliches and stuff they see elsewhere is par for the course.

There are exceptions, and when that happens is when you get good writing.

This happens across different cross-sections of culture; these days, large game studios employ a fair number of writers who otherwise don't have a great deal of technical savvy. It holds true everywhere: most people, in any industry that requires writing, can't write. Most movie scripts are awful (the number of direct-to-video movies out there can attest to this; hell, did you see Snowpiercer?); most TV show writers are awful; most games these days struggle mixing art-direction with game-design. Having more writers doesn't increase the chances you'll get better writing: it just increases the chances a good writer will get drowned out.